


More Than We Bargained For

by Mdeezy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, BAMF Pidge | Katie Holt, Coran backstory, Gen, Hunk/Pidge friendship, Keith (Voltron) Backstory, M/M, Minor Keith/Lance (Voltron), Multi, Ratings: PG, Shiro PTSD, Space Mom Allura (Voltron), as close to canon as possible, post season one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mdeezy/pseuds/Mdeezy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being sucked into the wormhole at the end of season one Keith and Lance find themselves stranded on a strange planet that at first seems deserted, but has lots of terrifying secrets lurking under the surface. Pidge and Hunk are dumped in the middle of a Galra controlled military state and have to combine wits to stay alive.  Coran and Allura have 10,000 year old secrets to confess and Shiro is left alone to deal with his crippling fear and PTSD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Haunted Island

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a sappy Klance fic and then somehow morphed into my continuation of the entire Voltron mythos. No pressure, right? It's my intention to fully flesh out every character and fill in some gaps about their backstories and whatnot, but for the most part this is going to be a very plot heavy story, very in line with something that I believe might be depicted in the actual show. There is nothing in here that I would consider inappropriate for children, but there will be brief descriptions of injuries/violence, political themes, hallucinations, PTSD, references to homosexual relationships, and mild creep factor. Its all pretty PG, but if any of that bothers you, feel free to skip this fic. Otherwise, enjoy the first chapter :)

“Shiro!” Keith screamed into the vast desert landscape. “Pidge! Hunk!”

He trudged forward, away from his lion and rubbed out the tension in his neck. It looked as if he had crash landed in the middle of a desert. Nothing but coarse yellow sand as far as the eye could see.

“Coran! Allura!” He stumbled and coughed as sand entered his lungs. “Lance? Anybody!”

The comlink was down, but _someone_ had gone through the portal with him. He was sure of it.

Keith’s heart wouldn’t stop racing. It hadn’t since they’d landed at the docking station less than twenty-four hours ago. It was a miracle that he was still on his feet. Heck, the fact that Keith was able to function on a day to day basis at all was a miracle. This space warrior thing was him going above and beyond.

This planet, if it was even a planet, didn’t seem populated. Keith wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. He decided that getting to higher ground would probably be the easiest way to scout his surroundings. It was also an extremely easy way to get captured on a Galra enslaved planet, but there wasn’t any amount of logic that could dissuade Keith from doing something once his mind was made up.

He climbed back into the red lion and took to the skies. He was surprised to find that he was not actually in a desert at all. There was a huge ring of trees surrounding the arid landscape, and a ring of shore around that. He was on an island. A very strange symmetrical island, ringed with layers of different landscapes like the rings on an old tree stump.

A pang of distress that was not his own surged through him.

“What is it, girl?” He asked Red, patting her dashboard. _Could magical robot lions get fatigued?_ He wondered.

The lion veered sharply to the left and Keith let her take control. They were flying low over the forest ring of the island, swerving to avoid the tips of trees. Red let out a mighty roar and then stalled, waiting.

Keith heard a much weaker roar from down below. The red lion whined and her anxiety piqued. Keith tried the dead comlink again.

“Anyone there?”

There was static on the line. “Keith…” It was barely a whisper.

“Lance, where are you?”

“There’s a cave…”

The link cut out again.

Keith cursed softly and led his lion into a nosedive.

“Help me find the blue lion,” he whispered, settling them on the ground.

The red lion leaped through foliage and ran faster than Keith had ever experienced. Once the trees opened up into a clearing, Red let out another roar. The returning sound was stronger this time. Closer.

Red thundered back into the trees and ran so fast that it made Keith nauseous. He felt like Hunk.

Finally, after several agonizing minutes of hyperspeed running, the lion stopped outside of a small opening in the ground. It was eerie, this lone cave, surrounded by trees with no signs of a river or body of water that may have formed it.

“Lance?” Keith shouted, climbing out of his lion.

“Here.” The words were barely audible.

“I’m coming after you.”

Keith found a stone and chucked it into the cave. Not even a second later, the pebble clanked to the ground. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to plummet to his death, he slid through the two foot wide opening and dropped down into the cave. It was pitch black and the air was cooler. Keith could make out the subtle sounds of rushing water.

“Lance?”

“Over here.”

Keith followed the sound of the other boy’s voice. Slowly his eyes started adjusting to the dark and he could make out the outline of Lance’s silhouette. He was sprawled on his back, arm bent at an awkward angle.

“We gotta stop meeting like this,” Lance quipped.

Keith shook his head. “What happened? Where’s your lion?”

Lance shrugged. The motion looked odd and painful as he was favoring one side.

“I was in my lion when we landed, but then I passed out, must’ve hit my head. When I came to, I was lying on the beach, being pecked at by birds. Blue was nowhere in sight. I thought I was hallucinating. That somehow I was back home on Varadero and this whole Voltron thing was some sort of twisted fever dream.”

Keith scrunched up his eyebrows. “And how did you end up in a cave?”

Lance sighed. “You’re gonna make fun of me.”

Keith cracked his knuckles. “I am not.”

“I tripped.”

Keith blinked. “You tripped. And then fell into a two foot cave opening.”

Lance didn’t say anything.

Keith shook his head. He shouldn’t really be surprised. He wanted to say something uncharacteristically snarky, but the truth was, he was relieved. If _Lance_ had made it, chances were that the others were much better off.

“You’re a real piece of work McClain.” Keith knelt down to get a better look at Lance’s arm. “I take it you had a rough landing?”

“No actually, it was already like this when I woke up on the beach.”

Keith scowled. That implied that someone had wrestled an unconscious Lance away from his lion, broken his arm, and dumped him on the beach. But who? And more importantly, why? Whoever it was could have easily just captured or killed him, and yet, here he was. Safe and annoying as ever.

“Let’s go find your lion.” Keith said.

Lance nodded, but the second he tried to move he cried out in pain. “That’s it,” he said dramatically. “Go on without me.”

Keith tapped his fingers against his thigh pensively. He scooted closer and gingerly took the offending arm into his lap.

“Holy Quiznak!” Lance wailed.

“Shh. Don’t be a baby.”

Keith began stripping away Lance’s armor as gently as he could. Lance was biting his bottom lip, but small gasps of pain still managed to escape. Once he had wrestled all of the armor away, Keith was left staring at a grizzly sight.

He swallowed. “Don’t look.”

Of course Lance looked. The skin around his biceps was a nasty shade of blackish purple, spattered with blood. Splintered white bones were clearly visible.

“Oh. That looks bad.” Lance said tightly.

Keith stood up and began stripping off his own armor as well.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you a sling.” Keith said, slipping off his T-shirt. Lance was staring. Keith pretended not to notice. “This is gonna hurt.”

“Oh, good. Wouldn’t wanna get too comfortable.”

Keith sat down cross legged behind Lance’s head and drew him up into a sitting position. Lance’s head drooped, but he hadn’t passed out from the pain just yet which was a good sign. Keith deftly and quickly looped the soft cotton shirt around Lance’s arm before securing it at the nape of his neck. He gently tugged, making sure it was tight enough. Lanced gurgled a little, but didn’t protest.

“Any better?” asked Keith.

“A little,” Lance admitted, leaning back against Keith’s bare chest. Both boys were breathing heavily and in sync.

“How are we gonna get out?”

Keith shrugged. “The way we came in.” At that, he stood up, bringing Lance with him. Lance staggered, but with the help of Keith’s steady grip, remained standing. They hobbled over to the cave opening. It was approximately seven feet above them.

“Yo Red! Little help!” Keith shouted.

At that, the red lion stuck its tail down into the opening. Keith grinned. It was just long enough for him to reach up and grasp. He braced himself against the sloped cave wall, held Lance tight against his chest, and let the lion pull them up.

___

When they emerged they were greeted by not one lion, but two. Lance sighed in relief.

“Stupid lion. Where did you go?!”

The blue lion turned it’s head down sheepishly.

“Typical.” Lance said.

Keith didn’t even ask. “We should go looking for the others. You need a healing pod.”

Lance smiled. Even in excruciating pain, he smiled. Keith couldn’t help but notice how fluid and easy Lance’s smiles were. He always smiled naturally, like he couldn’t help it. Keith always smiled like he was trying not to.

“What?” Lance goaded. “Were you worried about me or something.”

“Yes.” Keith said, shutting him up. A slight blush crept up along Lance’s face.

“I-I don’t know if I can pilot like this.” Lance admitted.

Keith nodded. “We can go on foot. We need to explore this place anyway. See if we can figure out where we are. Are you okay to walk?”

Lance shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

The two of them set off into the forest, periodically calling out to their friends. Nobody came. The longer they spent here, the more unnatural it began to feel. The strange rings of different climates, the complete lack of any movement or sentient life aside from themselves, the complete and all-encompassing silence.

Naturally, Lance decided to fill in the silence with talking. An endless stream of mindless drivel about everything and nothing all at the same time.

Keith vaguely remembered Lance from his time at The Garrison. He could easily picture the loud mouthed, over-eager cargo pilot. Confident and starry-eyed. Waiting on a chance to prove himself.

None of that had changed. In fact, Keith would venture that Lance was even _more_ eager to prove himself now that the stakes had been raised. It was why he was always running headfirst into danger.

_Only, that wasn’t the reason at all..._

Lance’s earlier words rattled through Keith’s skull: _You’re being selfish because you’re too scared to do what’s right._

Lance always seemed to know right from wrong. He didn’t even have to think about it. It was infuriating. Lance and Hunk and Pidge and Shiro just lived in a constant state of black and white while everything in Keith’s landscape was maddeningly gray.

“Don’t you ever shut up?” He shouted, interrupting a story about Lance’s brothers.

Lance set his jaw and kept walking.

“Ya know, I don’t know why you even bothered saving me if you hate me _that_ much.” Lance sniffed.

“I don’t hate you.” Keith said automatically.  

“And another thing! I’ll have you know--” Lance paused with his good finger in the air like a geriatric professor. “Wait, what?”

“I. Don’t. Hate. You.” Keith enunciated every word as if he was talking to an absolute idiot (which he was, so).

Lance let his hand drop, seemingly at a loss. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _Oh_.” Keith rolled his eyes vigorously, a trait he hadn’t even known he possessed before Lance.

“But I thought…”

Keith turned to face him, hand on his hip. “When are you going to get it through your exceedingly thick skull that this _rivalry_ you’ve cooked up between us is literally just a fantasy you use to inflate your own ego.”

Lance’s eyes filled with anger. “Hey, I don’t need help with my ego. I have a great personality. _You_ on the other hand…”

“What? What about me?” Keith asked, venom clouding his words.

Lance’s eyes narrowed. “You push everyone away because you’re scared and don’t know how to deal with genuine emotions.”

Keith raised both of his arms in exasperation. “Unbelieveable.”

He turned and started making his way back to the lions.

“Yes. I am!” Lance shouted at his retreating backside, but he did not follow.

___

Keith tried not to think about Lance while he was setting up camp. It was proving rather difficult considering he had literally just left an injured comrade to fend for himself in the middle of some foreign wilderness.

Usually he was above feeding into Lance’s incessant drama, but he was tired and it had been a taxing couple of days. He knew that he should’ve gone back for him immediately, but he was still upset. Honestly, he had no reason to care about the brat in the first place, what with his happy family and easy smiles and aggravating quips.

At least, that’s what he told himself whenever he remembered the mangled arm and started feeling guilty.

Keith had spent the better part of the afternoon gathering logs and branches and asking Red to set them on fire. Now the sun was disappearing behind the horizon, making way for three distinct quarter moons.

Keith sat in front of the fire and let the warmth settle into his bare skin. (He was still naked from the waist up thanks to a certain ungrateful paladin). He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers a few times, shivering at the memory of dark magic and healing. He didn’t even want to think about the implications of the quintessence healing him. It brought back painful and unexplained memories. Things that he knew from experience were better left alone.

The forest felt different at night. It was still just as ominous and quiet and devoid of life, but now with a foreboding sense of something lurking beneath the surface. Keith stood up.

“Lance!” He shouted, hoping that the boy had sucked up his pride and was lurking somewhere nearby. There was no response.

Keith cursed under his breath and climbed into his lion. “No disappearing acts,” He shouted at the blue lion as he climbed up into the air.

Using his lion’s tail as a torch, he combed the forest for Lance. He couldn’t have gone far.

Or so he thought.

After nearly an hour of searching to no avail, Keith was starting to panic. He imagined Shiro’s face when he told him that he had lost Lance. Imagined Hunk’s tear-filled eyes. No. He could not let that happen. Keith touched down on the beach and started roaming the perimeter of the island on foot.

“Lance, I’m sorry. Please come out now.” His voice echoed back at him from the darkness.

A twig snapped. Keith stilled, not daring to move.

“Lance?”

A soft rustling of leaves, audible only because it was the only sound on the island besides his own breathing. A shadow peeking out from copse of trees directly in front of him.

Keith ran.

“Lance! Come back here. Your arm!”

The figure kept moving, always several feet ahead of him. Anger boiled in the pit of Keith’s stomach. He lunged for Lance’s retreating figure and managed to grab a fistful of his shirt. The two of them went tumbling back, Lance falling on top of Keith.

“Lance, your arm,” Keith whispered, out of breath. “Is your arm okay?”

The other boy wasn’t moving or saying anything, just breathing heavily on top of Keith’s stomach.

“Lance. Could you please take this seriously?”

The boy said nothing.

Annoyed, and sighing with the fervor of a thousand sighs, Keith pushed Lance off of him and stood up.

In doing so, he was met not with the familiar dark blue irises he had begrudgingly come to accept and admire, but pitch black eye sockets completely devoid of any white and glinting devilishly in the dim light of the multiple moons.


	2. Programmers In The Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to Lance you ask? Oh I'll tell you what happened. This chapter follows Lance's arrival on our odd little island of doom and eventually merges back into what was happening in the previous chapter. Contains mildly creepy imagery if you're sensitive to that kind of thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol. Sorry about that cliffhanger guys. Stick with me here. All secrets will be revealed in time. I promise.

Lance was falling. Like, from the sky. Nothing but tepid air between him and the white sand of the beach down below. He couldn’t remember where or why he was falling, but the quickly approaching ground didn’t seem interested in letting him ponder it. He barely had time to slam his eyes closed and whisper the start of a prayer before he found himself completely submerged in frigid water.

His armor was flooded instantly. It was weighing him down like a sack of bricks, greatly hindering his sloppy and desperate attempts to paddle to the surface.

Once he finally managed to pull himself up above the waterline he spluttered and tugged off his helmet.

Sparing a second to thank his blessed surfer lungs, Lance scanned the surface of the water for his bayard. It floated up next to him moments later, almost comically. He swam over to it and clutched at the familiar cool metal surface. A tiny ball of relief unfurled in his guts.

_That’s one less thing to worry about_ , Lance thought. _But where’s my lion?_

He spotted the shore off in the distance and started swimming. He had missed out on crash landing onto the beach by maybe a mile at the most. He didn’t really relish the thought. One man could only handle so many near-death experiences.

After several taxing minutes of hardcore breaststroke he was finally able to reach the shore and drag his cold pruny body out of the water. He shivered, struck by the realization that washing up on some random beach didn’t feel as odd to him as it probably should have. What did feel rather odd to him though, was the extreme lack of people. Varadero was always crowded, even in the winter. People milling and swimming and playing volleyball in the sand, but this place? This place was freaking desolate. Not a screaming child or colorful beach towel to be seen.

Lance placed both hands over his face in a saluting motion to block out the sun and scanned the sky for any sign of his lion, or anything else that could have caused him to plummet to his death for that matter.

He came up empty.

The sun was too bright and too hot, reminding him oddly of his mother. When Lance was little she’d often take him and his horde of siblings to the beach on searing summer afternoons like this one and yell at them about not staring at the sun, usually punctuated with a slap upside the head or a dramatic chest poke. Lanced missed her, so much so that he had to set his jaw to keep his bottom lip from trembling. The feeling of missing her, all of them really, was like a toothache. Painful and unyielding.

He glanced down at the glistening metal helmet tucked under his arm. Lance had no illusions of it actually working, seeing as it had just been completely doused in seawater, but he tried the comlink anyway.

“Anybody there?” He asked.

The line was quiet, just as he had suspected.

He was trying not to panic. Lance was not a very self-sufficient person. As much as he liked to talk a big game, he always relied heavily on the strength of those around him. He fed off of everyone else’s bravery and their fighting techniques. Alone, he was just a teen with a million things to lose and nothing to gain. The thought of being permanently stranded here, alone in this unfamiliar place, made his stomach churn.

He wished he could find his lion. He had no idea what it was like for the other paladins but Lance felt like the blue lion was an extension of one of his limbs. Not being able to sense it at the periphery of his consciousness was rather disquieting. Like a blind spot had suddenly cropped up in his vision.

Temporarily relegating his concerns to the back of his mind, Lance wandered into the forest. He had never liked forests. They were home to all of the monsters and curses that plagued his nightmares; a vestige from when his older sisters used to sit him down in front of a campfire and make up horrifying tales full of child-eating creatures that roamed the woods at night.

Also, Lance didn’t feel like he was exaggerating the sheer wrongness of the place. Sure, he wasn’t the most perceptive or intuitive, but he was a walking contradiction. Equal parts logical and superstitious, and in that moment both _equal_ parts were _equally_ screaming at him to hightail it right on out of there.

Alas, it seemed that his ‘good ideas’ punch card had either drowned back in the ocean or disappeared into thin air like his lion. So on he went.

After a good chunk of aimless wandering, Lance forced his way through the trees and into a small clearing; strange in the fact that it was completely barren of any small creatures. It was empty in the same way as the beach, only more eerie and nightmarish, the fodder of low budget horror movies. This was the kind of place where deer and birds and other such wildlife came to congregate, only dispersing if there were predators nearby. Lance felt their absence rattling in his teeth.

_This wasn’t right._

He spun around in a circle, suddenly overcome by the feeling of being watched.

“H-hello?” He called out.

There was a soft electric hum cascading from the trees all around him.

“Shiro?” His voice squeaked. “Is that you?”

The humming stopped.

“This really isn’t funny you guys.”

A tree rustled somewhere in the distance and Lance yelped, jumping several feet into the air like a marooned sea creature.

“Lance?” said a familiar mullet-y individual, emerging from the foliage.

“Keith!” Lance shouted.

His breath wooshed out in a showy huff and he ran to embrace the red paladin. Keith clapped him on the back awkwardly.

“Boy am I glad to see you,” Lance said, stepping out of the shameless hug. “Maybe not as glad as I’d be to see Hunk, but glad nonetheless.”

Keith scowled. “I take it you haven’t found the others.”

“Can’t say that I have. Where’s your lion?”

Keith shrugged. “I can’t feel her. What about yours?”

“Same.” Lance chewed on his bottom lip. “Do you think everyone’s okay?”

Keith shrugged. “They can handle themselves.”

Lance huffed indignantly. “I _know_ that, Keith. But, what if they got stranded on a completely different galaxy or something?”

“Well then there really isn’t much we can do about it, is there?” Keith spat.

Lance grumbled, but followed the other boy out of the clearing.

They combed the woods for several hours looking for the others to no avail. They didn’t talk, both consumed by silent worry. Lance felt the urge to break the silence a couple of times, but ultimately didn’t for fear of losing some sort of silent battle of wills. Showing weakness in front of Keith was about the last thing he wanted to do right now. Or ever really.

Instead, he focused on the sky. There was something off about it too. It wasn’t really anything he could explain, something akin to the streaks of heat radiating off of black pavement on a hot summer’s day. Invisible, yet not. There, but also imaginary. A trick of your vision that everyone could see but not explain.

“Lance!” Keith shouted, a few feet ahead. “Come check this out.”

Lance tore his gaze away from the sky and ran to meet him. The snappy retort died on his lips the moment he saw what Keith was looking at.  
It was the paw of one of the lions. The black one. Wires were peeking out of the torn and mangled metal.

Lance moved closer and discovered the head lying several feet away. He turned to Keith, terrified of what he might see, but Keith’s expression was unnervingly blank.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Lance said, trying to believe it.

_Shiro is an actual God. No way could this puny little island have taken him out._

But the threads of doubt lingered.

Keith nodded, but didn’t say anything. His mouth was set only slightly tighter than usual and his demeanor was perplexingly unchanged.  
It made Lance furious. His heart was beating much too quickly and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to pass out or throw up. He brought a shaking hand to his temple and rested it there for a beat before wiping away the sweat.

Lance shook his head, causing moisture to pool in his tear ducts. “Do you have to be so freaking stoic all the time? Aren’t you worried about your friend?”

Keith narrowed his eyes. “Of course I am. But we didn’t end up in our lions either. Shiro’s probably roaming around looking for us just like we are.”

They stared each other down for a moment, neither one wanting to concede, until Lance rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

He still wasn’t fond of Keith’s apathy, but sometimes there just wasn’t any arguing with him (and Lance sure did know a thing or two about arguing with him). The guy was practically a ticking time bomb. A match held over a fuel tank. It was this version of Keith that made Lance question why he hadn’t been kicked out of the Garrison sooner. Or why he was ever admitted in the first place.

All his life Lance had dreamed about being a pilot. He worked hard and studied and trained and fought his way to the Garrison tooth and nail, a fact that people tended to dismiss based on his aloof personality. Admittedly, he was known to break the rules and do his own thing from time to time, but at the center of it all there was _trying_ and _effort_. So much effort. People like Keith, all broody and isolationist and naturally talented, who skated their way to the top without really trying both angered and inspired him. Always a contradiction.

Keith and Lance continued their search, but as dusk started falling in this strange sterile landscape Keith and Lance mutually decided to set up camp. Neither of them wanted to stop looking, but they were both hungry and bone tired and stripped down to their cores without the aid of their lions. Keith had offered to scavenge for nuts and berries, but neither of them knew what they could safely consume on this planet so they decided not to risk it until they had no other choice. Instead, they settled for sleeping. Keith took the first watch. Normally Lance would have argued about it, insisted that he take the first watch instead, but he was so tired that he just nodded and closed his eyes. Within seconds of laying down he fell into a thick, hazy slumber.

* * *

  
Lance was stuck deep within that weird half-sleep reserved for sleepovers and other unfamiliar locations when something, a noise, tugged him towards wakefulness. There was movement beside him. He watched through slitted eyes as Keith stood and mechanically walked into the thick vegetation, as if pulled by an invisible string.

Lance rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stood. He followed behind as quickly and as quietly as he could. It reminded him of sneaking up on his younger siblings during their legendary hide and go seek marathons. Only there wasn’t bragging rights up for grabs this time, just a slightly elevated chance of aliens.

The light of the three moons hanging in the sky overhead was just barely enough to ensure that Lance didn’t crash into any trees as he trotted along. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how Keith was moving so quickly and sure-footedly. It was like he was possessed.

Lance sprang back as Keith abruptly stopped . He watched from his crouched position behind a large bush as Keith sniffed at the air. After a markedly pregnant pause, he turned on his heel, a precise ninety degrees, and began to run.

_He was sniffing something out._ Lance realized.

Keith the bloodhound. Typical.

Lance swore softly and did his best catch up. He couldn’t see Keith anymore, but his hurried steps were the only noise in the entire forest, and therefore not very hard to keep track of.

He looked up at the sound of Keith’s voice. _Who was he talking to?_

Lance forgot to look where he was going and tripped over some rogue tree roots. He face planted onto the forest floor with an unceremonious oof. He didn’t bother getting up.

From his position, he could vaguely make out Keith’s outline through the gaps in the leaves. He was hunched over something lazily, his dispassionate posture at odds with his increasingly panicked words. Lance inched forward on his stomach to better hear.

“Lance, your arm. Is your arm okay?” Keith whispered.

Lance’s blood ran cold.

_Why on Balmera was Keith addressing him if he wasn’t even there?_

Lance pushed himself into a crouching position as quietly as he could.

“Lance could you please take this seriously?”

Suddenly Keith was vaulted into a standing position by some unseen force. This was the first time since he’d fallen asleep that Lance had gotten a good look at Keith’s face. His eyes were black and soulless. Two almond shaped pieces of coal. Lance squeaked involuntarily and clapped a hand over his mouth. Demon Keith was too distracted to notice.

A second individual rose from the ground and into Lance’s line of sight.

This too, was Keith.

Eye’s wide and dilated with fear.

Clearly shaken and naked from the waist up.

Lance gaped at the two Keiths for a moment. Demon Keith took a step toward frightened Keith. Lance’s bayard became heavy in his hands as it silently transformed. He busted out from his hiding spot and bashed the nearest Keith, the black-eyed one, across the skull with his blaster.  
The creature, whatever it was, didn’t stick around for another hit. It dissolved into some thick tar-like substance and dissolved into the earth beneath their feet. Lance shuddered, letting the arm holding his blaster fall down to his side.

Not a second later there was a sword pressed up against his neck.

* * *

  
Keith’s sword felt airy and delicate in his hands, much more dangerous than a weightier weapon for the fact that it would only take a fraction of a movement to do irreparable damage.

 “Start talking,” Keith said. “Now.” The pulse in his neck was pronounced and erratic. He could feel his chest heaving to the same chaotic rhythm.

“Saved your life and this is the thanks I get?” Lance asked, nonplussed. “Typical.”

Keith tightened his grip on his sword. His brain still could not process what had just happened to him. His already very stilted patience was wearing thin.

“Lance.”

He said it like a warning. Thick with instability and thinly veiled threats.

Keith threats were serious threats. Everyone knew it.

Lance sighed. “Look mullethead, I have literally no idea what’s happening here. All I know is that I woke up and there were two yous and one of them was even creepier than normal.” His eyes raked over Keith’s body. “What happened to your shirt?”

Keith glanced down at his bare chest, almost as if he’d forgotten. “You--you were in a cave and I…”

Lance quirked a brow. “Cave? I spent most of my day falling from the sky and traipsing through the forest with you.”

Keith gaped. “That’s not possible.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “A couple months ago I would’ve said magical space lions and wormhole generators were impossible too, and yet here we are.”

“But I--your arm was--”

“I’m fine, Keith.” Lance said, in a rare show of restraint. “I think it’s the island. It just doesn’t feel right. I think it might be alive or something, like the balmera. Whatever it is, I think it’s been taking our forms and trying to pit us against each other.”

Keith lowered his sword slowly, considering, and then nodded.

They both began to recount their experiences since landing on the island.

“I should’ve known it wasn’t you.” Keith said when both stories were told.

Lance smirked, rubbing at his neck absentmindedly. “I should’ve too. There were so many red flags, but I ignored them.”

“Like what?” Keith asked.

Lance shrugged. “Dunno. I could just sense that it wasn’t you. Maybe I’m just observant.” He waggled his eyebrows arrogantly.

Keith scoffed. “You couldn’t even sense that Pidge was a girl, and you knew her longer than I did!”

“That’s because I trust Pidge.” Lance smiled wickedly. “You, my dearest rival, are a completely different story.”

Lance stretched his arms out languorously behind his head. “You know what they say about keeping your enemies close.”

“Isn’t enemies a bit too strong of a word?”

Lance considered it for a moment but ultimately responded with a resounding, “Nah.”

Keith scowled.

Lance sobered up for a moment and looked Keith in the eyes. “Also because if there’s anyone in the world you care about more than yourself it’s Shiro. I knew you wouldn’t just write him off like that. The real you would’ve been worried.”

Keith’s cheeks went red. Part of him felt transparent and exposed, but underneath that there was the oddly satisfying feeling of being understood.

“Okay, fine. Maybe you’re more observant than I gave you credit for.”

Lance smiled smugly. That’s what the clone had been missing, Keith realized. It had possessed the same easy smile without the smugness. Keith was surprised to find that he actually preferred the real thing.

“What about you?” Lance asked. “Was there anything that gave it away?”

Keith thought about it. He really had to rack his mind.

“The birds,” he said finally. “You said something about waking up on the beach and being attacked by birds. As far as I can tell, there aren’t any on this planet.”

_Or large sentient mass of evil energy._

Lance nodded somberly. “We need to keep track of these differences or come up with a code word or something in case we get separated again.”

Keith opened his mouth, about to suggest a codeword when Lance rushed forward and pressed a finger to his lips. Keith stepped back, away from the surprisingly intimate touch.

“Don’t say anything.” Lance hissed. “For all we know this island could be listening. Do you remember the first time we formed Voltron?”

Keith nodded.

“Good. If we get separated or start suspecting each other we can just recount the details, okay?”

“Okay.” Keith agreed. He had to admit, he was impressed by Lance’s surprising amount of caution and forethought. The boy was not as dumb as he looked. He clearly made it to the Garrison on his own merits and not some fancy scholarship or parental connection. Keith made a note to ask him about it some day.

“Now, how on Earth are we supposed to get off of this space-forsaken planet?” Lance asked.

“We could try to just fly away in our lions.” Keith suggested.

“Can we even _trust_ our lions?” Lance asked. “If whatever creepy biz this island has to offer can conjure up exact replicas of us, who’s to say it can’t do the same for them?”

Keith shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ve got a good feeling about it. Our lions may be replicated, but I doubt that this place can also replicate the magic that makes them bonded to us.”

Lance nodded. “Worth a shot.”

Keith led them back to where he had parked the red lion and they climbed inside.

It was incredibly weird having Lance in there with him. He had been in Lance’s lion several times, but never the other way around. Red was private and complicated, just like him. Keith lifted off and silently directed her back toward the cave, and hopefully the blue lion. Lance was poking at the controls and interior like the urchin he was. Keith gnawed at the inside of his cheek, but didn’t say anything.

When they made it back to the cave the blue lion was there; a small miracle in a sea of nightmares. Keith deposited Lance onto the ground and watched as he cautiously approached his lion. Lance paused right in front of her, waiting. It took a couple of ticks, but the lion eventually let out a mighty, welcoming roar. Lance’s grin broke open wide. Keith was glad Lance couldn’t see him because he was smiling too. It was a beautiful thing, a boy and his lion. Lance patted her big metal cheek before climbing in.

Keith and Lance rose into the air side by side. It was kind of hard to coordinate their efforts without the use of their helmets, but they made do, both of them soaring ever higher into the sky. Keith let out an indulgent woop at the sight of the inky night unfurling above him.

And then, naturally, things took a turn for the worse.

Keith watched with sick fascination as the sky glitched above them.

Keith pulled on the metaphorical reins and stopped his ascension. He glanced over his shoulder to see the blue lion had also stalled. Keith flew in closer to Lance, bridging the gap.

The sky glitched again, stars and moons dissolving into a grid formation for just the briefest of moments.

And then they were falling. Their lions losing altitude faster than a falling anvil. Keith couldn’t get Red to respond to anything. It was like she had been short circuited by the mysterious programmers in the sky.

Keith jammed his bayard into it’s slot on Red’s dashboard. Sparks traveled up from the slot and into the lion’s core, causing her to awaken and fishtail desperately. Once they had straightened, Keith leapt back into the air, knocking the blue lion sideways to still most of its downward momentum. It was the best he could do.

They both landed hard on the beach, creating a massive cloud of sand upon impact.

Keith fought his way out of his lion, racked by vicious coughs.

“Lance!” He called hoarsely.

A hand emerged from the sand in front of him. Clawing and grasping at nothing, like a zombie.

Keith pulled him out. It took all of his strength and strained his muscles, but then Lance was gasping for air in front of him, stunned, but alive.

“Thanks Keith,” He said weakly.

“Don’t mention it.”

Keith sunk down into the sand, which scratched at his raw bare skin painfully, but he didn’t care. Lance sat down next to him and they both stared out at the ocean.

They hadn’t come any closer to figuring out the mysteries of this island, but one thing was for sure. It did not want them to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Hunk and Pidge stage a coup.


End file.
